Tuesday, October 18, 2016

So you own a "government services" company and want to impress the GS-17 Assistant Deputy Administrator For Dolphin Bomb Strapping/Micronesian Region that's responsible for 99 percent of your revenues? No better way of reminding him of your careful stewardship of tax dollars his place in the pecking order by showing him the view from this, your new "trophy office tower." Scoff at your competitors far below in Reston Town Center, in their inferior midrise Class A commercial office space! Mock the non-elite peons trying to figure out how to download a smartphone app so they can park in their sad non-wavy parking garages! Because you, wise scion of industry, got in on the ground floor of One Reston Town Center, the mauvescraper soon to bisect the big-box retail of the Spectrum Center along Reston Parkway. Only not the ground floor, silly rabbits. That's for some lowlife business like a Panera or something!

Sorry. We got a little carried away after reading the breathless marketing copy on One RTC's fancy new "web site":

Pivotal. Stunning. Remarkable. Impressive. Sophisticated. Expansive. Sounds like the vocabulary of another developer who's been in the newspapers of late.

But we digress. Not to be confused with the equally fancy "International Tower" rebranding across the Toll Road, One Reston Town Center has provided us with a bunch of the marketing language and awesome CGI renderings we love so bad. There's even an awesome video, complete with CGI people walking around like the ghosts in the machine inhabiting the CGI alternate reality of another exciting Reston development.

The developers do appear to be aware of the fun commercial office building trend of less space per worker, which leads to a comfortable working environment like this:

In case you didn't feel like counting, that's 9 offices and 125 "open workstations." We can't wait to move Restonian World Headquarters into the third cubicle of Row Three on the southwest side of the 9th floor. Cozy!

But let's not dwell on that. The building will have a "cybercafe," which apparently is still a thing? Maybe it will have a T-1 connection direct to America Online and Compuserve. Plus, DEALMAKING.

Folks on the right doing some STONE COLD DEALMAKING. The slackers sitting down nearby? Not so much. COFFEE IS FOR CLOSERS, CHUMPS.

This dynamic duo is doing so much UNDER THE TRELLIS DEALMAKING, they're not watching the gang of roughies loitering nearby.

These CGI folks on the video are CYBER DEALMAKING. Not sure if the woman on the right is contemplating jumping because of some DEALMAKING GONE BAD.

Finally, an illustration that accurately captures the zeitgeist of the contemporary workplace, the end.